Rx : Reactive Extensions for .Net and JavaScript.

Rx is a set of framework extensions to allow developers to easily do asynchronous programming via familiar interfaces. If you are familiar with LINQ and IEnumerable<T> and IEnumerator<T> you will instantly be able to grasp and use the new interfaces IObservable<T> and IObserver<T>. The enumerating interfaces allow you to PULL sequences of T from an interface in your code. The observing interfaces allow you to have sequences of T PUSHED to handlers in your code in response to asynchronous LINQ queries. Rx is implemented over the top of PFx (Parallel Framework extensions) so all the threading and concurrency is handled for you including synchronization contexts which is especially useful if you are programming UI. It is also particularly significant that the Rx extension methods include a FromEvent() method that allows you to attach handlers to a steam of events in a very fluid way.

Finally, back to Channel9 to look at RxJS for Reactive extensions for Java Script so the UI I mentioned above now includes web UI too. As Jeffrey Van Gogh says in the RxJS video, web programming is about “asynchronous stuff” but java script is an imperative language. It’s really hard to do good asynchronous stuff in java script. RxJS changes that it a big way.

Warning

When this blog got transferred from LiveSpaces some of the code formatting got messed up. I'm fixing this when I can be arsed (which isn't often) but if there's something bugging you let me know and I may have mercy.